FE P-Limited Rules NAMBA and IMPBA and best choices!

[RonShaw]

You're pissing up a rope Kent! LMAO

Ron check out the pile O fuses on the NAMBA Nats, thread on OSE!

Promote P Tunnel Ron!!

Later!

Lol Doug. You saw that too on Darin's post???? Motor fuses everywhere. He will have some great ideas on this subject as well. Kent, I'm sure over propping this setup is whats causing us to fry them.
Looks like I should have refreshed my browser lol. A lot of great conversation about the subject is taking place since Doug made his post that I replied to. I'll read over what was posted and see if we can can you make progress. Thanks everyone for the great feedback. l think we are at least helping determine if national classification is worth it or not in IMPBA. Either way it will still be fun to continue running at our local district races.

 

[Darin Jordan]

I'm sure over propping this setup is whats causing us to fry them.

Sort of.... what people were discovering is that they need to consider the water from Lake to lake. All of these setups worked fine on their home lakes. A motor from Arizona, a couple from Indiana, several from just up the road in Washington. Never had another issue after they adjusted for the lake.
Just goes to show you that motor quality was NOT the issue, and no rule will prevent RACERS from finding the limits.

The VERY same thing happens in EVERY other NAMBA and IMPBA class, there just aren't as many racers there to make it look like the epodemic that people seem to want to make it in P-LTD. Just the reality of racing hard.

 

[RonShaw]

Oh, to answer Ron's original question, I don't know about what ESC rules IMPBA runs, but my Lynx and my Dragon M11, arguably the most competitive FE P-LTD OPC Tunnels in NAMBA at this point, both eun Castle ICE100 ESCs, and AQ UL-1 motors.

The Lynx pulls around 83-103 AMPS, and the Dragon M11 about 95-115A, both with the same prop. Not sure why the difference.

Thanks Darin. That was some of the info I was also looking for from this thread.

 

[RonShaw]

Not sure where you saw gloating aimed toward NAMBA Darin?

"P-LTD is what it is. It should never have been made a National Class as is. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess".

Looks to me like we agree. Exactly the point I was trying to get across to Ron.

Thanks for the help.

Later fellas!!!

D.

OK so if national P Ltd. is out looks like P is the best route for IMPBA at this time? Also just continue to offer and run the P limited classes at the district IMPBA races as we have in the past?.

 

[RonShaw]

I'm sure over propping this setup is whats causing us to fry them.

Sort of.... what people were discovering is that they need to consider the water from Lake to lake. All of these setups worked fine on their home lakes. A motor from Arizona, a couple from Indiana, several from just up the road in Washington. Never had another issue after they adjusted for the lake.
Just goes to show you that motor quality was NOT the issue, and no rule will prevent RACERS from finding the limits.

The VERY same thing happens in EVERY other NAMBA and IMPBA class, there just aren't as many racers there to make it look like the epodemic that people seem to want to make it in P-LTD. Just the reality of racing hard.

Great points Darin. That expands on the importance of monitoring current and propping accordingly.

 

[HOTWATER]

You're pissing up a rope Kent! LMAO

Ron check out the pile O fuses on the NAMBA Nats, thread on OSE!

Promote P Tunnel Ron!!

Later!

Kent, I'm sure over propping this setup is whats causing us to fry them.

Ron, I sure am glad you understand that...lol! The worked prop on my green Vision makes my setup VERY on the edge of what to do and what not to do using the UL-1 motor ESC setup. One of the bullets on my ESC desolders itself just about at the end of every other heat with about 15-20% of the lipo left...would you say that this is a "Hot Setup"? Overpropped??...lol! ...Orig. UL-1 ESC still going!! Very Fast Tunnel!!..in fact, I don't think I have much more room to push the dang thing with a P-Lim. setup!!! If I can't be out front, I will be on your heels in B-P-lim. Tunnel, nitro or FE!! ; )
Can't wait to build and run my first Gas boat...

 

[lohring]

The questions again arise:

1) Speedo Limits- HOW do you TECH that, at NATIONAL level event?

2) Motor Weight Limit- Same question...

The more words you have on paper, the more tech-ing becomes an issue.

Also, nobody worries about motor weights, or speedo limits, in ANY other NAMBA class. We are already absolutely limiting the amount of power that is going yo be available by physically limiting the motor size. Why are further limits necessary?

Compared to teching the stock outboard classes, teching weight is simple. In the stock outboard classes, the engine is completely dissassembled and often measured. In some of the gas engine classes the cylinder needs to be removed and the bore and stroke measured. Teching size and weight in an electric class involves removing the motor, weighing, and measuring it. This would only need to be done for the winners at the national level or SAW record holders.

In any case, weight probably isn't critical if the size is constant. I just wanted to point out that the mass of magnets and wire is what makes power in an electric motor. We are also depending on the battery label for capacity information. With current limited by the motor, I can't see any problem there. Any reasonable capacity limit will be more than enough. We use around 2/3 the capacity of a 5000 mah pack even with penalty laps. No one wants to carry more battery than necessary.

The only other way to control current draw without elaborate current sensing fuses is by limiting the propeller. Our club tried that with "identical" sharpened and balanced props drawn from a hat before every race. That made driving almost the only variable in the Super V class. Everyone hated it because they couldn't tinker to get an edge. The 1/8 scale electrics tried limiting propeller diameter and the 1/7 scale electrics are limited to a particular out of the box prop. I expect most racers would hate that for the same reasons. Playing with props is a lot of the challenge and the limited classes really emphasize that.

Lohring Miller

 

[RonShaw]

The questions again arise:

1) Speedo Limits- HOW do you TECH that, at NATIONAL level event?

Darin,Thank goodness the only Speedo I have seen at a boat race was on Don Ferrette and we didnt have to "tech" it as it was thankfully on a pic from one of his body building competitions from many years ago!!!.....lol

 

[RonShaw]

BTW Lohring, that was great feedback. My personal opinion woukd be to leave the prop ip to the racers. As Kent mentioned earlier, rolling the dice coukd get an advantage but coukd also result in a DNF from a fried motor. With all of the great feedback, do we attempt putting together p limited ruls set or do we jump to full p as many have mentioned in these posts???

 

[Darin Jordan]

do we attempt putting together p limited ruls set or do we jump to full p as many have mentioned in these posts???

Well, if you're like me and don't think there are enough active OPC classes, you do P-LTD, as I've described above, which is ideal for our 3.5 sized hulls. Then you do full P with the 7.5 Hulls. Finally, you do "Open", using the larger hulls on 6S-10S!

Sounds ideal to me!

 

[RonShaw]

Thanks Darin. Looks like its been tried before and for whatever reason, ended in controversy. I am happy to help if tgere are other IMPBA members that want to work together to try to come up with details that can be presented to the board for a one year trial.

 

[Darin Jordan]

Thanks Darin. Looks like its been tried before and for whatever reason, ended in controversy.

Funny how the "contraversy" always seems to come from people who don't run NAMBA and/or don't run P-LTD in the first place.
Recently, I put out literally about $800.0 0 of my own money, and lots of time, attempting to do a very thorough set of bench tests to see how a whole slew of 36mm x 61mm motors, including all of the existing P-LTD motors, compare and perform.

The results were enlightening.

First, it is clear that the motors presently approved are VERY evenly matched in performance and power output.

The second thing that was clear was that it was simply NOT going to be practical to simply add additional motors to the list without upsetting the existing parity.

The most telling test was to load EACH motor to 100A, and measure the KV, RPMS, KV-drop under load, and record temperature gain under load.

If you look at the chart attached here, you'll see how close the P-LTD offerings actually are.

You'll also see how some motors, like the TP3660-1950 KV clearly out performs, and others, like the 3650 sized, under perform.

Our conclusion was to leave the present list alone, and look to a different direction.

The simple dimensional limits are the direction I think our local club may go. It's simple, techable, inclusive, and a rule that would NOT have to be revisited. Once in place, if the motor doesn't exceed the dimensional limits, it's legal. Go racing!

And, so far, beating down every question or objection has been pretty simple. The bottom line is: you can only get SO MUCH power from a 36.3mm x 61.2mm brushless motor. There is a physical limit, and you can throw as much $$$$ as you want at it, it's only going to go so far.

P-LTD, in every sense.

 

[HOTWATER]

Agree with you 100% Darin...

Great job putting together that chart with all of your test readings...excellent! ; )

 

[RonShaw]

Darin,

I agree. That is an awesome chart of your comparisons and findings. Im sure everyone will appreciate your efforts and feedback.

 

[HTV Boats]

Thanks to Darin for all his work here. Very good info. I am a 36X60 fan all the way. I suggested a cap of $100 but I guess it would only complicate the rules. One of the car racers we converted to boats loves the simple cu in. displacement only rule we have in nitro. Race cars a while and you will see rules and how to break them. A simple X-Y can limit is pretty easy to enforce. That and costs are kept pretty inexpensive. I know this is dreaming but what if NAMBA and IMPBA both adopted a simple size and voltage limited class? Would the sky fall in? Would it hurt racing competition in any way over the present system? Could a universal class improve or reduce numbers? What is the big risk versus potential stability. New people and experienced races build equipment for reliable classes. That's why Sport 21 works.

Mic

 

[lohring]

do we attempt putting together p limited ruls set or do we jump to full p as many have mentioned in these posts???

Well, if you're like me and don't think there are enough active OPC classes, you do P-LTD, as I've described above, which is ideal for our 3.5 sized hulls. Then you do full P with the 7.5 Hulls. Finally, you do "Open", using the larger hulls on 6S-10S!

Sounds ideal to me!

I second that as well. P limited has been great for new racers in all classes in our club. I just dusted off my Q Leecraft XT-460 for some open outboard fun.

Lohring Miller

 

[RonShaw]

Thanks to everyone for their input. Looks like we are making progress. Lets start putting together a formal document that covers the complete rules needed to cover the p-limited and "P" classes. Since there is not an official "open" tunnel class either, that brings about a different set of issues for the 'Q". It would be easier to create the "Q" class alond with the P-limited and "P" classes for now. Thoughts? Then we can propose to the IMPBA Board to be considered for a one year trial and subsequently, voted on by our membership. Hopefully we can get this passed. My current D12 Director, Don Ferrette, has declined to get involved and wants to wait on his replacement after the first of the year. I understand his feelings on this as obviously this rabbit trail failed miserably this last time due to negative feedback and posts. Since I am in D12, we will need to present this through a different district and director to follow proper IMPBA protocol. Any ideas?

 

[T.S.Davis]

Darin, I'll bite. haha Pachmeyer used to tell me that I knew nothing about FE because all I was doing was hosting the biggest FE race in the country year after year in my own back yard. If I wanted to know what was really going on in FE I needed to go to gas races. Um..........what?

I am a 36X60 fan all the way. I suggested a cap of $100 but I guess it would only complicate the rules.

This is going to happen. I proposed it to our gang yesterday and asked them to find flaws with the thinking. They're all in. This is what we should have done from the start. Hind sight. In our defense, it was winter of 2008-2009. There weren't decent $100 motors on every website back then. The cost was a concern but a cap on the cost wont work. What do you use? MSRP? The price on fleabay? The sale at Hobbyking? On race day the CD looks in a boat and sees motor x,y,z. What's the price on that? Guy has a receipt showing he paid $100. Do I spend the time to go on line and find it to see if the number is legit? PIA

As for FE not taking off. It did and it has. Some people can't make it work. It's not the boats though. It's their crap attitudes. Anybody want to hang out with negative Nancy? Ugh. Moving along. We ran 45 heats yesterday for a tiny little club gig. 5 of 7 classes ran the spec motors. Number of motor failures........zero. I've been to 4 IMPBA travel events in two years. So not my home pond........ Gracious hosts. Thanks to all. The Spring NATS in Atlanta had more FE entries than gas and nitro. So............failing? We could have fielded more classes at the CanAm but their gang preferred to keep the classes with an even mix if they could. Makes sense. It's a mixed event. We had some guys bail too so it worked out.

Of those 4 IMPBA events I attended the majority of the FE entries were.............limited. "Yeah Terry, but what rules do you use?" They all followed the NAMBA rule set. Clearly it's horrible.

Back when Newland wrote the rule and our district proposed it there were really only 2 decent manufacturers of RTR's. Those were Proboat and Aquacraft. Made sense to us at the time to provide a landing pad for guys that went into the hobby store and bought a boat. No they weren't going to stomp a mud hole in our butts. Who does with their first boat? They come out and play. They hang with good people. Have some fun. Laugh. Act a fool. They watch, learn, ask questions. We teach them to be faster. They learn to drive. It pisses some off that Newland and I wanted the RTR's to be part of the equation but it is a fact. This worked too. It held together longer than we thought it would. Limited numbers were and still are the most contested classes in FE.

Unfortunately the idea had a shelf life. A number of things we got wrong that have bit us on the behind too. Peterson is right to a degree. We did get it wrong in multiple regards. I just prefer to see 5+ years of decent participation as a positive. Glass is half full.

So what went wrong?

Supply of motors for one. We really do as racers push right out to the edge. It's racing right? We're not playing tiddlywinks. When you're close to the edge, any differences from one run of motors to the next will get exposed. A quality shift of 6 or 7% might be a melted motor. You can't replace the bearings per the rules so if they get sketchy you buy another motor. New motor, same setup, and it fries. So dial it back right? Yeah right. Your racing a guy who has a motor from the earlier batch. We're racers remember. Been there. Done that. Got the pile of motors to prove it. If you bought a motor and it SUCKED, you might think "maybe I got a bad one". If you got 4 in row like that you'd buy a different brand right? Unless the rules require you to buy from only two places. One motor isn't competitive and the other is going to spontaneously com bust. Ugh. Can you smell the frustration? It's wafting across lake MI in my direction.

Second, a manufacturers' dedication is to the dollar. Period. Racing makes up such a small percentage of their market it's not even a line item. When Proboat made the decision to drop a whole motor line to save a few dollars..........they just did it. Some of the motors on the list aren't actually available at all. With Mike Z. gone, Aquacraft to my knowledge isn't developing anything new. Their market share will continue to shrink as a result. Their competitors are developing new exciting stuff that will out sell the old UL1 for instance. See where I'm going with this? The supply of AQ 2030 and 1800 motors "could" easily vanish. Then what? We'll have a list and no motors to buy that are on it. Blew it on this front.

Third. Another mistake we made with the list itself was that we linked ourselves to just two manufacturers. See above. The list has gotten tight already. Although it accomplished what Dave and I had hoped it wasn't right to write rules that in effect catered to any manufacturer. Hind sight again.

Making the change to size will make it much like the other fuel sources. Fuel classes have size limits correct? So why not a size for limited FE classes? Super easy to tech too. Another bonus to just limiting the size is that new manufacturers that come along don't have to jump through a hoop to please a tiny little segment of their market. New potential racers are more likely to end up with a boat from the store or on line that fits in without changing a motor.

The boats may and probably will get a little faster over time but there's still only so much power you can extract from the size limit. Couple that with the 34" boat length limit and you can only go SO fast and finish. You could buy a motor that will hold up for a while. Peoples existing fleets will still be legal but if they hurt a motor they have a choice. No catering. Just more sensible to most that have talked about it.

 

[RonShaw]

Great post Terry. You have put a lot of thought into this, obviously. If everyone, including your group, are thinking about it, then it can happen. I like the size limits as well. Makes it easier for everyone, especially the hosting club and CD, when it comes to tech-ing and verification. This leaves the ESC and 4S battery selection, up to the preference of the individual boater. The fuse is set with the motor, so adding three 4S 6000mah packs and a 500amp controller results in no gain whatsoever, except maybe a longer burn time. I am glad to see everyone on here discussing and figuring out a way to make this happen. FE is here to stay so we might as well figure this out so we can use it to bring more "fun" to our hobby. Fun means more boaters. More boaters means more growth. More growth means even more fun!!!

 

[T.S.Davis]

I take responsibility for it too. I was part of that process. If ya take it on you own it even when you screw it up so I am. I guess it sorta worked for a while but was flawed.

I feel like this will hold up longer than the mess we started with.

Sure, you might find a motor and speedo to spit out 7000 watts but what the heck do you do with it? You still only have 34" of boat. Eventually you have to turn.

I say no records this time either. That was the 4th thing we screwed up. How can you have records for a specification that very very few people would know how to tech with absolute certainty? If a guy is deep enough into his addiction to start worrying about records he's deep enough to cypher an open setup too.

My think'n and that of some others is that this could be a stepping level so to speak between not racing at all and full on open power classes.